Previously, puzzle-building and -solving games have provided building blocks such as structural members and action devices that interact with one another, e.g., an action device might act upon a first structural member, thus causing a second structural member connected to the first to react in conformity with physical laws to deflect, to pivot, to compress, etc. The object of such games is to challenge the user to solve such visual puzzles (which may have an audio component as well), and some such previous puzzle games also permitted the user to create puzzles using the members and devices provided. The selection and placement of members and devices typically has been done on a computer display screen by the use of menu selections made by a pointer device such as a mouse-controlled cursor. One such puzzle game is The Incredible Machine.TM. interactive puzzle, and its progeny, from Sierra On-Line, Inc., which include structural members such as walls, ropes, inclines, seesaws, pulleys and balls, and which include action devices such as gravity, cannons, motors and conveyors that may be connected thereto to create a dynamic action sequence.
Such previous puzzle games represent structural members as two-dimensional objects having ends that can be made to abut corresponding ends of other objects to create a structural cooperation, e.g., between a pulley and a rope extending therearound or by a wall abutting another wall. Because the representations are two-dimensional, they are relatively simple for the computer to draw and update, or refresh, to simulate the movement of objects. Some such puzzle games include a character that might act as a host or mascot, but such character is a mere observer who does not influence the action, the objects or the scenery. While the character might respond to action between a member and a device, as by shuddering at predefined times, it would have no impact on the action. In other words, the objects are `unaware,` in the programmed conscious or artificial intelligence sense, of the character's existence, identity, proximity, orientation and activity.